"Listen Within"

I'm trying to focus more on myself. I discovered the practice of mindfulness as a way to help combat my anxiety and while it can be hit and miss for me, I know that I'll never get better at it if I don't try. Pretty much everything in life is that way. I ended up working a bit of mindfulness into my art journal.

Something else that I've been working on is faces. A few months ago, I was sketching and coloring a face at least once a week. Then something happened. I stopped doing faces and took a break. My first face in quite a few months is the purpose of this blog post.

It started out rough. The background is craft paint over stenciled gesso. A second stencil is visible above the first layer with Apple Barrel's "Too Blue." Then we come to the face. I started out by sketching the shape of the face. I added the neck after that and I have to admit that this guy's neck looks way too thick.

I used a black Stabilo All pencil to outline the face, facial details, and the neck. I love how this pencil blends in with paint when Dina Wakley uses it and I attempted to mimic her technique.

This is how the face looked with the second layer of paint (slightly lighter than the first). I still struggle with highlights and shadows and the Stabilo All pencil kind of helps you fake it. Still, it's far from perfect. I was going to go over it a third time but I decided that even though it has imperfections, there's something simplistic and calming about it.

This is the final result of the page.

Other than the baby blue stenciled dots, not much changed to the face. I rebuilt the structure of the chin with the Stabilo All pencil and avoided going back into the facial details because I like how they look. Is it perfect? No. Am I happy with it. Absolutely.

"An Artist's Life" - An Art Journal Page

 I was looking for some fun stickers that I could implement into my art journal pages a couple of months ago and I found quite a few that caught my eye. One of the stickers that I purchased worked great for the page I created.

© Leslie Evans       [to purchase]

To begin the page, I decided to use the 5.5" x 8.5" Canson Mixed Media journal that I've been working in. The paper weight is 98 pounds and it can take quite a few layers of paint, gesso, and texture paste. The smaller size makes it ideal for pages that you want to dry quickly between layers without the need for a heat gun (I don't like the fumes).

I started with a layer of Apple Barrel's New Shamrock (21479). Once dry, I applied a few 1" lines of Art Basics white gesso and used a shaped Catalyst palette blade (C-64) to spread it around. The result was the boxed/lined texture that almost looks like tire tracks. The hardest part was waiting for the gesso to dry because it was still in clumps in some areas and I wanted to make sure that it was thoroughly dry before I added another layer.

I covered up the background and gesso with a bit of Yellow Flame (21474). I used a brush to spread the paint evenly and placed down one of Patti Tolley Parrish's round stencils (Dot Maze Round) before the paint had even started to dry. Using a baby wipe, I lifted the yellow out of the stencil areas to create a contrast between the two colors. My next step was to apply a thin coat of Liquitex Airbrush Medium over the page to give it a little bit of a shine while also binding the three layers together.

Once that dried, I used Apple Barrel's Black (20504E) paint and applied it with a makeup wedge through Tim Holtz's arrows stencil. I used a couple of them and once dry, I lined inside of the arrows with a white Uni-Ball Signo pen. I was trying to go for a haphazard look without going outside of the line.

I found some matching washi tape that shared the black and white theme with the arrows and I used a couple of pieces in strategic locations. Then it came time to add the sticker, but it didn't pop off the page as much as I wanted it to. The solution was simple. All I had to do was outline it with a black Pigma Micron pen.











I'm really happy with the outcome. I like how all of the elements are cohesive together and yet the focus is still on the great sticker I found on Redbubble. If you haven't taken a look at all of the amazing art that people sell on that website, I encourage you to check it out.